Patrick Geddes (1854-1932)

By living we learn

Patrick Geddes.

Patrick Geddes was a man of diverse interests and talents. Today
he is probably best known as a town planner. However, he has also
been described as a biologist, sociologist, conservationist,
educationist, and ecologist.

Geddes did much to improve the living conditions in his local
environment and was also a figure of international importance. He
travelled widely and corresponded with key thinkers and writers of
the time such as Charles
Darwin, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nobel laureate,
Rabindranath Tagore.

Above all, his aim was 'to see life whole', and to achieve a
better understanding of human beings in their natural, built, and
social environments. His ideas and concerns about the environment,
education, and conservation are still as relevant today as they
were in his own time.

In this video, Senior Manuscripts Curator Olive Geddes
introduces items relating to Patrick Geddes in the National Library
of Scotland's collections.

Who was Patrick Geddes?

Patrick Geddes was born in Ballater, Aberdeenshire, on 2
October 1854. He spent his childhood in Perthshire and attended
Perth Academy. He had a lifelong contempt for examinations and
never took a university degree. After a period of private study, he
chose botany as his subject but left Edinburgh University after one
week. He went on to study botany and zoology with individual
teachers and mentors in London and Paris. It was in Paris that he
became influenced by the work of the French sociologist Le
Play.

Geddes became a demonstrator in practical physiology at
University College London, and in 1879 he travelled to Mexico to
collect biological specimens. While there, he suffered temporary
blindness and this left him with permanently weakened eyesight. It
was during this period that he discovered his 'thinking machines' —
a visual method of presenting and connecting facts and ideas to aid
thought.

Geddes spent most of his life outside normal academic channels.
He seemed to have difficulties expressing his ideas in writing.
However, he had a gift for mobilising others and for putting his
ideas into practice.

Renewing Edinburgh's Old Town

Edinburgh tenement.

In 1880, Patrick Geddes was appointed Assistant in Practical
Botany at Edinburgh University and was based at the Royal
Botanic Garden. He settled in Edinburgh with his wife, Anna.
Over the next 20 years he initiated a number of social experiments
designed to improve housing and living conditions in the Old Town.

By the mid 19th century, many of Edinburgh's most prosperous
citizens had moved to the New Town or the newly-built suburbs to
the south and west of the city. The Old Town was in desperate need
of improvement, with poor housing and sanitation.

Geddes believed that, in order to understand and improve a
community, one had to be a part of it. In a bold move, he
transferred his family to James Court, a near-slum off the
Lawnmarket at the top of the Royal Mile. He started by improving
the building in which he lived, but he was soon inspiring and
mobilising his neighbours into communal action.

In 1884, Geddes established the Environment Society (later the
Edinburgh Social Union) to encourage local residents to survey,
plan, and improve the local environment.

Geddes wanted to encourage a mixture of people from different
backgrounds and professions to settle in the Old Town to create a
mixed, vibrant community. He founded University Hall, the first
Hall of Residence in Edinburgh. The hall was set up in renovated
properties around the Lawnmarket, including one in Riddle's Court
(soon to be transformed into the Patrick Geddes Centre for Learning and
Conservation).

Outlook Tower, now
the Camera Obscura.

Another project involved transforming Short's Observatory on
Castlehill into the 'world's first sociological laboratory'. The
Outlook Tower, now the Camera Obscura, encouraged people
to take a holistic approach to learning about the environment.
Successive floors demonstrated how by starting at a local level,
one can begin to make connections with the wider world.

Geddes' wife Anna worked alongside him throughout their married
life. She was to provide the stable home-life and support that
enabled Geddes to carry out many of his projects.

'By leaves we live'

'How many people think twice about a leaf? Yet the leaf is the
chief product and phenomenon of Life: this is a green world, with
animals comparatively few and small, and all dependent upon the
leaves.'

This quote from Geddes shows that gardens were an important
feature of his social experiments and town planning initiatives. He
believed that gardens and green spaces were essential for:

Encouraging people to be active and to be outdoors

Producing local food

Brightening up and improving the local environment

Community cohesion

Learning about bio-diversity, life forms, and the changing
seasons

Taking responsibility and stewardship for the local
environment

In Edinburgh, as well as other cities, Geddes made use of
disused and derelict spaces, however small, to create green spaces
and gardens for the local inhabitants to tend and enjoy.

Learning by doing

Patrick Geddes believed that education was a catalyst for social
change and active citizenship. He explored the ways in which people
learn most effectively. He developed an educational philosophy
which emphasised the combination of 'hand, heart, and head', in
that order of priority.

He believed learning should engage the emotions, and include
physical activity. This included 'learning by doing', as well as
more traditional methods of learning from books and lectures.

Geddes also promoted an interdisciplinary approach to learning,
highlighting the useful connections and synergies between different
subject areas and disciplines.

From 1883 to 1903, he organised the Summer Meetings of Art and
Science which attracted scholars from Britain, Europe, and America.
The meetings were initially designed to help school teachers to
teach the natural sciences, and a significant proportion of the
participants were women. Over time, the meetings extended over a
longer period of time, covered a greater range of subjects, and
became more international in scope.

The summer meetings attracted an impressive range of speakers,
including John Duncan, the Scottish artist, and William James, the
American psychologist and philosopher. Students could choose from a
full programme of activities including talks, excursions and field
trips, and evening concerts and cultural events.

Cities exhibition

Between the 1890s and 1913, Geddes created and toured the widely
acclaimed 'Cities Exhibition' in Edinburgh, London, Dublin, Belfast
and Ghent. The exhibition set out his theories about town planning,
and helped to make his name in this field.

As war broke out in 1914, Geddes embarked for India to show his
'Cities Exhibition' in Madras. Sadly, the ship 'Clan Grant' was
sunk en route for India, and the exhibition was lost. Geddes'
friends rallied round and helped to gather more material for
display. The exhibition opened only two weeks late in January
1915.

The National Library of Scotland has recently acquired some
archive material relating to the 'Cities Exhibition' including
photographs and sketches showing the development of Edinburgh.

International influence

Geddes' ideas about town planning and sociology extended to
other countries and continents.

Geddes lived in India from 1917 to 1924, making detailed and
careful suggestions for the re-planning of a considerable number of
Indian cities. He also held the Chair of Sociology and Civics at
Bombay University from 1919 to 1924.

In 1919, Geddes was also commissioned to suggest improvements to
the city of Jerusalem and to plan the new Hebrew University there,
and in 1920 he went to Ceylon to report on the re-planning of
Colombo.

Montpellier summer
school.

After Geddes' health began to deteriorate in 1924, he was
advised to leave India and he settled instead in Montpelier in the
South of France. He began to create the Collège des Ecossais in
Montpellier. This was his 'long dreamed of' project to 'refound'
the famous Scots College of Paris.

Patrick Geddes accepted a knighthood in 1931. He died in
Montpellier in the spring of 1932.